


A Liar's Eyes

by cilceon



Series: Lying Eyes and Honest Hands [8]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Tenderness, god they love each other so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:15:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29638680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cilceon/pseuds/cilceon
Summary: He leaned back, “Alrighty boss twirl around and let me fix up the front.”She did as he asked, shuffling around on the dirty floor and turned to face him.Now he leant forward, teasing a few strands of her hair free. They fell down around her face, gently cupping it. Deacon twisted the strand around his finger, training it into a soft curl.“Hey Wands?” He spoke after a beat passed.“Mhm?”“I got something important to say.”(Its a retelling of the 'big talk' that is Deacon's finale affinity talk, he also braids her hair at the start)
Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor, Deacon/Sole Survivor (Fallout)
Series: Lying Eyes and Honest Hands [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992751
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	A Liar's Eyes

_“You'll be loved  
Like you never have known  
And the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams  
Just a series of blurs like I never occurred  
Someday you will be loved_

_You may feel alone when you're falling asleep  
And every time tears roll down your cheeks  
But I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet  
And someday you will be loved_

_You'll be loved”_

_\- Death Cab for Cutie -_

Wanderer had managed to prop an old, cracked mirror from a vanity against the wall which she was now looking into with a concentrated look on her face. Trying – for the fifth time that night, to French bread or hair. She was never really good at braids but saw no better use of her current time on watch than to try getting better at them.

Deacon was curled up in the remains of what had once been plush bed on the other side of the decaying apartment’s room – hopefully asleep. Of course, there is no way of knowing in part to the glasses that she was almost certain were glued to his face. She wasn't sure if they was actually a comfortable thing to sleep with when he was on his side like that.

A small, frustrated sound escape her as she shook the attempt loose. Black hair cascading down her back like a falling tree.

At this point Wanderer would be better off just winding it up into a bun and then being done with it. There wasn't any progress being made. On the other hand, she had already gone through the trouble of brushing the hair and there wasn’t anything else to do but keep going with it. With all the mishandling it was already getting tangled once more, what she wouldn't do for a bottle of conditioner.

She made another small sound – this one sounding more like a sigh and reached for the brush that she was lucky enough to find in the half-collapsed bathroom upon the pair's arrival. With a toss of the brush from hand to hand in a moment contemplation before bringing it to her hair. The only other option she could find to pass the time was staring out the window wistfully at the rain falling on the other side. The single candle Deacon had found didn't make enough light to read by, or else she would be finishing Animal Farm for the second time since coming out of the Vault.

“You’re going to rip all your hair out brushing it like that.” Deacon spoke from behind her, breaking the silence of the room so abruptly that it caused her to flinch – pulling her hair entangled in the brush with the movement.

She sucked in a breath, scalp stinging. “Jesus, Dee I thought you were asleep.”

“Just woke up Wands.” He sat up with a stretch of his arms, “What are you doing to your head?”

“I’m _trying_ to French braid my hair; it’s not going well.”

Deacon walked around the candle, picking it up as he. Setting it down as he sat next to her. “Like the country?”

Wanderer gave a small smile, explaining how the braid was supposed to work, “It starts at the top then goes down the back, but I can’t get the top right.”

“Oh, a vine braid.” He suggested.

“Vine?” She echoed; linguistics was an interesting thing.

“Do you want me to give it a go?” He tilted his head to the side, glasses settling with the motion.

“Ah the baldest man in the Commonwealth knows how to braid hair?”

“Mhm, don’t you know? All us bald guys take classes on it, there’s a monthly meeting in Dimond City and everything. We got competitions to see who can braid the fastest. Nicky always wins – but I’ve gotten close a few times.”

“It’s not as if you could do a worse job than what I’ve been attempting.” She turned from Deacon, to give him access to the back of her head.

In turn he picked up the brush up off the floor then ever so slowly slid his other hand under her hair so the bristles of the brush went against his palm and not her neck. “It’s not often I get to see ya’ with your hair down boss.”

Wanderer nodded and she felt her hair slide through his fingers. “I feel like it always gets in the way when it's down. But I've been growing it out since I was a little kid, can't bring myself to cut it.”

“And what would we do without the bobby pin pit that you have up there?” It wasn’t an exaggeration. When she twisted her near hip length hair into a bun, she would shove any pin in sight into it to keep the mass in place. It saved their asses more times than she could count – with her affinity for opening any lock they came across and everything. Maybe that was why Deacon kept her around.

“I never noticed how thin your hair is.” He murmured over her shoulder.

She spoke to his blurred reflection in the dusty mirror instead of trying to turn around. “Thanks, I got it from my mom. Believe it or not hers was even darker than mine.”

Deacon gasped theatrically, “You have a mother?! Why did you never tell me?”

She brought her hand back and thwapped him on the knee before moving it to run through her now tangle free hair, shifting out the creases from her previous attempts. Deacon inched closer to her and raised his own hands up towards her hair.

“Ouchy. Her hair was darker than yours? That’s hard to believe.” Deacon took a breath, and broke the surface of her hair, splitting it apart into sections. It moved like the rain outside, dark, black and entrancing.

Wanderer’s breath hitched in turn, suddenly realizing how intimate the moment was. She thought Deacon faltered for a moment, but when Wanderer didn’t ask him to stop, he continued **.** “Did I snag it by accident?”

“No. No you’re good.” Her voice was small. There was no reason to get flustered. It was just Deacon.

Wanderer’s hair was like silk, and it slipped between his fingers with ease as he began to cross over the strands.

“Technically I had a mom, but she died when I was hardly a teenager. I don’t have many memories of her.”

“A part of me wanted to think pre-war folks didn’t have to worry about not having their parents.” Deacon spoke before he could stop himself, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. “Hold on, hair’s so dark I can see the different sections in the light.” He moved back from her; the soft _click click_ of his glasses folding filling the room before they were set down to the side.

Wanderer could see the glasses out of the corner of her eye. Fully aware that if she looked back into the reflection in front of her, the blue of his eyes would glint in the candlelight. She looked to her hands in her lap. “You can’t really tell by looking at me thanks to my dad, but my mom was Asian. Dad always said she was too stubborn for her own good. Part of the reason I became a lawyer was for her.”

Deacon brought back strands from the front of her face, the rough pads of his fingers gently gracing the tips of her ears as he passed over. They were warm. “If your mom was anything like you, she must have been one hell of a lady.”

She closed her eyes slowly in an attempt to hide resentment – or sadness she wasn't sure. “Yeah, she really was something. My dad never really went into much detail but there was a lot of anger going on back then with anyone who looked different. Especially people who were different and who were loud.” The rain was coming down brasher now, just barely drowning out over the steady pounding of blood in her ears.

“Being Asian was a lot like being a synth Dee,” She unclenched her hands, releasing her palms from the crescents her nails dug into her flesh, “The big Red Menace and all that. Nobody cared that her family had been in the states for generations – I was ‘lucky’ that I got most traits from my dad.”

“My mother was a hairdresser.” His voice matched the softness of his hands as he switched the focus to himself, recognizing that this was a sensitive topic of discussion for her.

Wanderer had learned fairly quickly since knowing Deacon that he hid somewhere between a grain of sand and a tablespoon of truth in every story he spun out for her. And as it was approaching a year of his companionship, the truth was leaning on the side of tablespoon more often than not. “Was she now?”

“Mhm,” He hummed with a run of his fingers through her hair, “Ma could take any bum and make them into a beauty queen. She was the best one in Rivet City.”

She titled her head to the side, “Rivet City?”

He put either hand on the sides of her head and with a gentle touch, set her back to neutral. Deacon cleared his throat like he was about to recite something. “It is the largest, most developed and scientifically-advanced, native settlement in the [Capital Wasteland](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Capital_Wasteland). Its inhabitants live in individual rooms and enjoy relative safety and security inside of a pre-war aircraft carrier.”

She chuckled against his hands still on her temples, “You sound like a tour guide.”

“Thanks, that’s what I was going for.” He returned his attention to the braid. She noted that he was grabbing small locks of hair. Allowing the braid to take longer to complete.

Wanderer closed her eyes, this time focusing on the feeling of his hands running through her hair.

He thought for a moment before answering, maybe deciding how much truth to weave in, “Ma loved it. But… class divisions was a big problem when I was a kid. The people of the city were divided into two annoying parts.” Deacon explained. “Us poor Hanger Decks were on one side and the Upper Deck citizens were on the other.”

“Like in Dimond City?” She moved to look at him, but her attention was kept forward with the remembrance that his glasses were off. She settled for glanced at him through the mirror. The hazy light of the candle preventing her from seeing any real detail of his face.

He tapped the top of her head, noting what she was doing, “In a way… the distinction wasn’t as cosmetic as it is in The Great Green Jewel. Hangers get red lung real often; you know what that is?”

Remembering a case an old co-worker had worked for the shipwright’s union she suggested, “Isn’t that from rust?”

Deacon’s reflection nodded, “Yeah, caused by breathing in rust particles. The walls of the lower decks flake off the bastards. We just had to deal with the short straw of accommodations than those in the Upper Decks. To boot, since we also lived close to mirelurk-filled lower parts of the ship – we were under the constant risk of being killed by the rampaging crabs if security lapsed in their patrols.”

His hand moved over the shell of her ear again. Wanderer had to restrain herself from leaning into the touch, “That had to be hard for you as a kid. Living in fear like that.”

“It’s how it goes for all of us.” The words came out nonchalantly, but he let here hear the undertone of sadness. “Still, the lower decks were safer and most people there lead better lives than wastelanders outside the ship. I’ve heard that for about the last ten years or so there’s been a new guy name Harkness in charge of security. I guess he’s a solid guy, a real Preston Garvey.”

Wanderer found herself rolling her eyes. One thing Deacon didn’t make a secret of was his opinion of Preston. He though her second was too naive yet he wouldn’t elaborate on it when pressed. Regardless, she decided to bring it up again. “You don’t like Preston.” It was said as a fact, one she was throwing out in to open for him to play with.

Deacon pulled the braid taught, causing Wanderer to let out a soft “ow” It was empty, though. The two of them knew he would never actually hurt her.

“Are you insinuating that the man drives me bonkers, but not in the fun way?” He leaned over her shoulder to try and gauge the expression on her face to which she kept her face forwards. He took the glasses off to see her hair better, there wasn’t a need to over-read the situation.

“I might be implying it, yes.” she said, watching a small smile grace his lips. Satisfied with her response, Deacon returned back to finishing the job at hand.

“He just… I dunno Wands.” He was doing a normal braid down the rest of her hair now and was nearing the end.

“How does it look?” It was her turn to change topics.

He sighed. “Not my best work but you’d still be able to pull it off.”

Wanderer felt warmth rise in her cheeks, it was like she just downed a shot. “Deacon, we both know I can pull anything off.”

“Oh, I know.” He leaned back, “Alrighty boss twirl around and let me fix up the front.”

She did as he asked, shuffling around on the dirty floor and turned to face him. Wanderer kept her eyes on the seams of the floorboards.

Now he leant forward, teasing a few strands of her hair free. They fell down around her face, gently cupping it. Deacon twisted the strand around his finger, training it into a soft curl.

“There,” he said, voice suddenly sounding too quiet as Wanderer’s eyes met his directly for the first time she could remember.

Blue– no, grey. The sky right after it stopped raining, flecks of blue scattered about them. He wore the glasses to hide more than his expressions. She now realized; crow’s feet surgery couldn’t halt from returning hinted to what his actual age could be. Her heart pulled at her, the soft tinge of purple under his eyes indicated a truth she already knew.

He had the eyes of a liar.

There was a warmth behind that sadness, a hint of color that wasn’t just pigmentation – but life, and it glinted at her expectantly. She blamed the soft diffused din of the candle on them shifting into something else.

Deacon spoke through the silence. “How does it look?” his voice was low, gravelly almost.

She swallowed, turning towards the cracked vanity. “It – it look’s good, Dee” She cleared her throat, and brushed the curl slightly away from her eye. “Beautiful.”

He couldn't recall where but in some book he had stumbled across, Deacon had read something about how some group of ancient people had around fifty words just for sand. A tribe of people of North had a hundred for snow. He desperately wished that he had a thousand to compare to the feeling inside of him, but all that came to mind was the look of awe her face as she looked at herself in the reflection of the grime covered mirror.

Some inkling to describe the way her hands would ghost across his skin when he was hurt. Or how is she tilted her head to the side ever so slightly when he decided to string out one of his stories that he knew she could tell from the start was utter and complete bullshit. How Wanderer would lift an eyebrow when another member of the Railroad would rag on him for his relationship with honesty – it was a look that said _really, you’re going to talk about him like that when I’m right here?_

It was moments like this that Deacon remembered that this wasn't everything she knew. She had known better and deserved better. She wasn't used to having to sleep where the walls weren't solid, or the beds weren't soft, where the blankets weren't plentiful.

Out of everything she now had to deal with, the cold was the thing she had the most trouble. Whether it was left over from her pre-war days, or because she was frozen for 200 years – he couldn't quite tell. Deacon knew it made her unhappy, and he didn't like that.

He wasn't quite sure how to describe it – the relationship he had with Wanderer. Yes, she was his best friend, but somehow she was so much more. It was terrifying. Every single piece of him screaming no. _No, you cannot do this_. Yet it was times like this that he thought maybe – just maybe, fate picked favorites. That favoritism shifted from person to person, yes, but right now it was on him, and, selfishly, Deacon didn't want to let it go.

A deacon proclaims gospel, but they cannot hear confessions. How he wished to be a vase that she could pour all of her tears into. It had only happened two or three times where she had let him see her cry.

When Wanderer cried it was the most heart wrenching thing. They were tears full of insurmountable sorrow, intangible grief. He would do anything to remove that pain from her. No one would understand the violence it took for her to become that gentle.

His Wanderer was able to pinpoint any problem, any weakness that she saw in her companions when they travelled with her. Not for the sake of whatever fight with raiders they were in, but to protect her friend completely. Deacon found that, never on her watch would any of her friends be left alone. He admired that in her – even if it meant that she could get hurt. She loved them all so much.

What an odd thing it was to be cherished by someone who does not know him. But here she was. Didn't she love him? Did he have any right to think that she loved him? She had said so yes, but was it in the same way she said it to Nick, or Preston, or hell, Dogmeat. He couldn't find any special meaning in it that differentiated him from the others and even if he thought he did could, it was dismissed immediately every time.

If Deacon let Wanderer see who he was, she would see that he was a monster – the lowest beast she has ever known. She would leave his side, rightly so. But the tenderness in her eyes when she looked at him? It surpassed all the great comforts that anyone had ever had the pleasure of holding since man first breathed. Her eyes made him rethink the hatred that he deserved.

What right did Deacon have to claim those eyes for his own? He was just the shadow watching her, guiding her down a path with suggestions and humour. Putting her back upright should she slip. He was nothing important to her.

Nonetheless here she was, sitting cross legged in front of him, looking at her own reflection as if it were the first time she had ever seen it. Deacon could live in the moment forever, with the rain tapping on the roof above them.

Nothing was set in stone; it was more like a dirt road. If someone rolled a waggon in the same path too much, it becomes the only path that can be taken without struggling. And he had been on the path of lying for so long that now, that in moments like this where he wanted to say _I love you fully and completely,_ Deacon would freeze. It was terrifying – so terrifying.

This woman made him feel like he deserved it. That he had deserved to be loved since the moment he was born, and that that right had never left him. As always, he would would push that thought to the side, but it continually regrew in his heart with a fiery persistence.

Deacon couldn't stand the thought of her getting hurt because of him. He knew that one day when he wasn't expecting it – that that very thing would happen. He could only hope that he was by her side, and it was after they'd taken the Institute down.

“Dee, whatcha thinkin’ about?” Her eyes moved from her own reflection to his and he suddenly became very aware of the fact that his glasses were not on. He reached down to the floorboards, picking them up and putting them back in their rightful place.

“The exchange rate from caps to dollars,” He kept his voice quiet, as if the tone could hide him. “I’m wondering how much Glory’s minigun can get me if I’m ever in a pinch.”

She smiled with a closed mouth laugh, “She’ll break your arm before you even get the chance.”

“Hey Wands?”

“Mhm?”

“I got something important to say.” _Deacon what are you doing?_

She turned around completely, the candle burning between them. “Is everything alright?”

He smiled sadly at her concern, “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just– well, I really appreciate you putting up with my bullshit.” It was said with a chuckle. He was really going to do this, “Truth is it's been a long time since I've had a… _friend_.”

Wanderer tilted her head to the side like he knew she would, the braid he had just done slid down her shoulder. This was the first time he had been so open with her, of course Wanderer would be skeptical about it. He would expect nothing less.

“Well sure Dee, there’s no one I’d rather have by my side but you.” _Please don’t say that._

He sighed; the breath held a shaking that he didn’t attempt to hide. “I'm a liar. Everyone knows it. I– I make no secret of it. Because the truth is: I'm a fraud. To my core.”

He couldn’t look at her, instead settling for the way her hands were laced in her lap. At the gold band on her index finger glinting with the reflection of the candle. The shield his glasses gave him didn’t exist with Wanderer anymore. “When I was young, a hell of a long time ago, I was– well, scum.” He closed his eyes with a swallow. “I was a bigot. A very violent bigot.”

It felt like he was about to get sucker punched. Like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. That Wanderer was about to say something along the lines of him trying to sell her another lie this late into the night.

“Were you really that bad?” Wanderer’s voice was soft within the question. There was no skepticism in the words, only a desire to understand.

“Worse than that. I ran with a gang in University Point. We called ourselves the UP Deathclaws. For kicks we'd… terrorize anyone that we thought was a synth.”

“Deacon–”

He interrupted her, afraid to lose steam. “We kept egging each other on. Started with some property damage graduated to some beat downs. Then, inevitably– a lynching. The Claw's leader was convinced we'd finally found and killed a synth. Looking back, I'm not so sure.”

“You killed someone?” Her brow knitted, laced fingers morphing into fists.

If confessions were good for the soul, why did this hurt so much?

Deacon nodded solemnly, “That one was enough for me. It was his eyes… those eyes haunt me.” He turned his head from her, the voice in his head telling him to shut up. Deacon refused to listen to it. “So, I turned my back on my ‘brothers’. Broke all contact.”

“Leaving them took a lot of courage.” Wanderer brought her hand up towards him but had obviously thought better of it as she let it fall back into her lap.

“There was nothing brave about it, Wands. But leaving wasn't free– they took it out on my sad hide. Time passed, I became a farmer, if you can believe that.” He gestured to himself halfheartedly, “Then, one day I found someone. She saw something in me I didn't know was there.” _Say her name. She deserves for her name to be said._ “By the time I met… Barbara, they'd moved on.”

“What was she like?”

“Barbara, well, she was… she just _was_. She had a smile like on those old magazine covers. Her eyes–” _They were like yours._ No. He had no right to say that. “Being with her made me feel like the whole world had a chance. That one day we could climb out of this wreckage. She could do that to people.” He smiled with the memory of her, painfully as always, “We were trying for kids, eking out a living. Then one day… It turns out my Barbara– she was a synth. She didn't know that. I certainly didn't. I don't know how the Deathclaws found out. But… there was blood.”

“Deacon,” Wanderer lifted her hand again this time resting it on his knee. Involuntary he flinched; she should be hitting him, not showing him compassion.

“They killed her?” Her voice cracked.

“Yes.” How could one word hold so much anguish? He staired at her hand on him, “I don't remember much clearly after that. I know– I know that I killed most of the Claws. I must've made a big impression.” Deacon smiled bitterly. “The Railroad contacted me soon after and well, here we are.”

Her grip on him tightened slightly. He spoke before she could. “I know you’re thinking that I’m feeding you a story that you can find similarities in but Wand– Charlie, I swear I wouldn’t hurt you like that.”

Deacon tried to keep the disconnect between her real name and Wanderer in two different categories as often as he could. He wasn’t sure when it became a claim to endearment. Project Wanderer had grown to be one of the most treasured people in his pathetic life.

He didn’t take his eyes off her hand, “I don't even know why I lie any more. But I can't tell the truth. Everyone– Tom, Dez, _you_ , even that asshole Carrington deserve to be in the Railroad. I don't. I'm everything wrong with this whole fucking Commonwealth.”

Her fingers tightened on him. “Deacon that’s not–”

 _Please, don’t show me kindness._ “You're the only friend I got. I– I don't deserve you being okay with this. Hell, I'm not even asking for it. But I figured you should know; sorry it was out of the blue like this but I–”

Wanderer brought her hand to his face, silencing him. “Deacon.” He closed his eyes; a tear betrayed him and fell with the action. It rested on her thumb, she brushed it away with a ghost of movement. “Deacon.” She sounded so sad.

He went still under the sudden contact. Not rigid, but quiet. He didn’t want to miss a moment of her touch. Deacon didn’t want to be distracted by his own breathing. God, he was pitiful.

“Thank you for sharing this with me.” Why was she was being so gentle with him? “I know it had to be difficult for you.” Wanderer moved her thumb across Deacon’s skin again, his stubble catching on the softness of her thumb. He was slacking on his everyday shaving ritual. “How we respond to what happens to us– especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted, and we have no control over? That's what defines us as people. If you asked me my dear friend, to define you, I would say that you are brave and strong and a good man who is trying to make up for the misdeeds of his past. I believe you are succeeding in that.”

“Wanderer, I–”

“Hush. It's my turn to talk.” Her other hand reached his face now, palms resting over both the pulses of his neck, “You are not the person you were yesterday or the days and years before. And you are not the person you will be tomorrow. Please, you need to understand that. And yes, part of me is saying; ‘Is Deacon messing with my head? Again?’” Her touch kept him from looking away. “But a bigger piece of me is yelling for the other to shut up.”

“Wands,” He looked at her through the tint of his glasses, “I’m in your corner, I always have been.” His voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Someone he used to be.

She nodded in agreement with a sad smile, hands leaving his face and taking their warm with them. “I know, Dee. I know. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“I'm not the hugging type. So, yeah. Good talk.” He was silent for a moment. The only sound being a pop from the flame between them and the rain outside, “It's probably your turn to sleep.”

Her smile lost some of its sadness, replaced with understanding. “I'd rather stay up and talk to you.”


End file.
